Apple falling even further behind in the highend DCC market...?!?

Another interesting capability is support of what's called a mezzanine card where four more dual core processors can be added along with 16 more DIMM slots for 32 more gigabytes of RAM. Imagine that -- 64 GB of RAM and 8 dual core processors.

?I think that besides hardware, apple is in big trouble with DCC app because there is no 64bit GUI osX?

All 3D companies have announced there 64bit app, but they can't release a mac version because 64bit computing with mac osX have to be done in a command line app behind a 32bit GUI through a message passing interface. This is ok for a render engine, but there is no way to VIEW in REALTIME "64bit data" like gazillion polygons?

For instance, I'm a lightwave user both on osX and windows, and in a few weeks newtek will release LW 8.5 in three flavour : XP : 32bit and 64bit / osX : 32bit only?

paradox : my PC aren't 64bit, so I will have to stick with XP 32bit, my macs are 64bit but can't run a 64bit app that needs a 64bit GUI?

So I hope that apple is doing something on the GUI side to include 64bit versions of Aqua, openGL and QuickTime?

Apple will likely never create such a motherboard. If you look at their directions for high end software they are slowly integrating Xgrid into the OS and Qmaster for distrib rendering. There is not need to have a huge honkin' computer/mobo when you have a decent clustered rendering system racked up. This does give me geek wood though to see Tyan push the envelope.

64-bit is still in its infancy. Sure I can buy windows 64-bit and Cinema4d and LW 64-bit but the problem right now is 64-bit drivers. I don't see 64-bit being mainstream until 2007

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Apple could have built something like this with a 970MP, but now they will have to wait for Intel... and it will be at least two years before Intel has anything comparable to today's Opterons.

The Opteron is a good chip but other than an ondie memory controller there's nothing in the Opty's that I can't see Conroe and Woodcrest competing well against. Intel has seceded the current market to the Opteron in a way but it's obvious from IDF that they're going to push the merom core very heavy in a year...not two as you state. I wouldn't bet against the Israeli Intel team myself.

Apple should focus a bit harder on DCC. Buy Luxology you idiots! However things aren't too bad. Soon Apple will have parity in hardware with PCs so it all boils down to software which we're still behind in.

?I think that besides hardware, apple is in big trouble with DCC app because there is no 64bit GUI osX?

All 3D companies have announced there 64bit app, but they can't release a mac version because 64bit computing with mac osX have to be done in a command line app behind a 32bit GUI through a message passing interface. This is ok for a render engine, but there is no way to VIEW in REALTIME "64bit data" like gazillion polygons?

For instance, I'm a lightwave user both on osX and windows, and in a few weeks newtek will release LW 8.5 in three flavour : XP : 32bit and 64bit / osX : 32bit only?

Extremely graphics intensive apps will incur additional I/O overhead (how much, I have no idea) when they funnel the stuff to the GUI side to get it displayed. The machine will display everything just fine. You aren't going to send over ALL YOUR DATA ARE BELONG TO US in 64bit greatness, you are going to send the data that needs to be displayed, which is far less. If I understand correctly, in the normal workflow of a 3D app the preview and "real" rendering aren't usually happening at the same time, which would decrease the performance hit.

The reason why OS X 64-bit graphics apps might lag behind is that most companies whose stuff is multiplatform are not going to be bothered to redesign it in those separate components, just to accommodate the Mac market which is in most cases smaller than the rest of the market... especially if they anticipate that Apple will upgrade its GUI libraries to 64bit soon enough and they'll be able to jump in with less work.

In short it's not that the companies can't do 64bit for OS X, it's that they won't.

I don't think it is true anymore that companies involved in 3D software ignore the mac market. Some do like avid but those that support both platforms have been surprised by the amount of mac people and switchers?

Newtek, alias, luxology and even more maxon are great supporters to the mac platform, but?

Even though the G5 processors of the Apple Power Mac series are 64-Bit CPUs, 64-Bit applications are not entirely supported by the OS X operating system. Only command line based programs can take advantage of the 64-Bit memory adressroom. Programs with a graphical user interface (GUI) can only run in 32-Bit mode. Therefore we can unfortunately not offer a 64-Bit version of CINEMA 4D for Macintosh. More information on this topic can be found here:

Of course you are right, I guess that they might do it, but it would involve a hudge effort, time and money, and anyway, by the time they finaly succed in making a 32bit GUI for a 64bit core, apple will update osX with full 64bit support? so they (and we) just have to wait?

that's what I mean? so let's hope that the drivers and the OS will soon have parity to (I hope apple doesn't wait for the mactel to introduce a 64bit GUI to osX)?

tomas

The 64-bit GUI is not relevant. Any app that sets up renders for this kind of thing uses an independent backend and messages to it for rendering. The backend is 64-bit and the front-end doesn't need to be. Go look at Maya some time, when you do a render a new process is kicked off to do the work.

The 64-bit GUI is not relevant. Any app that sets up renders for this kind of thing uses an independent backend and messages to it for rendering. The backend is 64-bit and the front-end doesn't need to be. Go look at Maya some time, when you do a render a new process is kicked off to do the work.

As I said, a 64bit backend is ok for rendering? but without a 64bit GUI you won't be able to view your mesh if it is too big, any 32bit app will stall or crash if you load more than a few million polygons while a 64bit GUI allow you to view even a billion polygons without a problem (and I mean openGL view : no nead to render)?

Re-architected with a gigapolygon core that takes full advantage of both multi-processor and multi-core 32-bit and new 64-bit platforms, XSI now handles the tenfold increase in detail demanded by next-generation productions ? in tests handling a billion polygons on 64-bit systems. Critical functions are in many cases up to ten times faster than in previous versions of XSI, and a new memory management system makes it possible to render literally any scene that it is possible to load, regardless of physical memory limits.